Iran successfully launched its second satellite, dubbed Rassad (Observation), into the earth’s orbit in June 2011.

Iran has four homegrown satellites awaiting launch, said the minister of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) on Saturday.

In an address to a conference on space technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said three satellites are in the final pre-launch stages before going to orbit, while another is all set for launch, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iran has made great headway in developing research satellites such as those used for measurement or telecommunications purposes, the minister added.

He thanked students at the Sharif University of Technology for having contributed to the development of the satellites.

“This satellite, which is ready to be put into orbit, is the achievement of local elite,” he noted.

“There is good potential in the country, and we are a leading nation in the field of research in the domain of remote-sensing and telecoms satellites,” the minister further said in the ceremony on Saturday, February 3, marking National Space Technology Day.

Meanwhile, Deputy Head of the Iranian Aerospace Association Farshad Pazouki said Iran is among the top ten countries in the world in terms of space technology.

“February 3 was designated as National Space Technology Day due to the successful launch of the Omid (Hope) satellite, which took us (Iran) into the world’s space club, and this is an honor that not just any country can achieve,” he said.

Iranian Space Agency (ISA) sent a monkey into space aboard an indigenous bio-capsule code-named Pishgam (Pioneer) in January 2013. The country also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using the indigenous Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.

Iran is one of the 24 founding members of the United Nations' Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which was set up in 1959.

According to the ISA, Iran ranks top in space science in the region and holds the 11th world ranking.

The country successfully launched into orbit its first indigenous data-processing satellite, Omid (Hope), in February, 2009.

As part of a comprehensive plan to develop its space program, Iran also successfully launched its second satellite, dubbed Rassad (Observation), into the earth’s orbit in June 2011. Rassad’s mission was to take images of the earth and transmit them along with telemetry information to ground stations.

The country’s third domestically-built Navid-e Elm-o Sanat (Harbinger of Science and Industry) satellite was sent into orbit in February 2012.